


The Scully File

by mldrgrl



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Before They Met, F/M, Season 1, Spying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 09:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13210782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: Written for a prompt passed my way: Mulder is assigned to monitor Scully's computer and falls in love with her.  Set in 1993 and working under the premise that Mulder and Scully met on March 6, 1993 and not March 6, 1992.*There is some content in the story that while not graphic, might be disturbing to some.  If you watch the show, I'm guessing you can handle it.





	The Scully File

When Mulder requested to take a leave of absence from the VCU, he didn’t expect a transfer to wiretapping.  Wiretapping was for greenhorns, for those that couldn’t hack it in the field, and the unit where one was sent as punishment.  Despite the bad reputation of the unit, it was still a respite from the brutal toll VCU had taken on him.  Most people might take a vacation at that point, but Mulder could never relax very easily.  He needed something to take his mind away from serial killers and listening to endless reels of secretly recorded conversations with drug dealers, money launderers, and low-rent mobsters seemed to do the trick.

 

After a month of wiretapping, Mulder got called into Section Chief Blevins’ office on a Friday morning.  Getting called up by a section chief was rather unusual.  Even though he was doing a stint in wiretapping, he was still under the purview of Reggie Perdue, his VCU supervisor.  He couldn’t be facing reprimand or reassignment, as either of those would fall to Reggie to dole out.  Getting called up by a section chief usually meant classified work.

 

The section chief was a small, stocky man.  In Mulder’s opinion, the older man looked like a box.  His jaw was square, his body like a rectangle, even his hands were small and compact.  He was grey and humorless in only the way a long-time government employee could be, the way Mulder never wanted to end up as.  In a way, the section chief reminded Mulder of his father.

 

“Are you familiar with an Agent Dana Scully?” Section Chief Blevins asked.

 

Mulder searched the recesses of his mind for the name.  He remembered her signature on a few autopsy reports.  “Is she a pathologist with the bureau?” he asked.

 

The section chief didn’t answer, instead he stretched a file out to Mulder from across his desk, which Mulder had to hover up from his chair to reach.  Inside the manila folder was a badge ID photo of a young woman and the familiar looping signature he’d recalled in his mind’s eye.  Her profile was the only page stapled to the file and he skimmed it briefly.

 

Name: Scully, Dana Katherine

DOB: February 23, 1964

Sex: Female

Race: Caucasian

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Red

Height: 5’3”

Weight: 102

Marital Status: Single

SSN: xxx-xx-4928

Phone: (202) 555-6431

Cellular: (202) 555-3564

Address: 4800 Cordell Ln 7B, Bethesda, MD

Rank: Special Agent, Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Agent Status: Active

Current Assignment: Forensic Pathology Resident/Instructor, Quantico

Badge #: JTTO 331613

Email: [d_scully@fbi.gov](mailto:d_scully@fbi.gov)

Weapon issued: Smith and Wesson 1056

 

Education:

 

1982-1986 University of Maryland, Completed an undergraduate degree in B.S. Physics

1986-1990 Medical School, Graduated M.D., did not specialize

1990 FBI Academy, Quantico Virginia, Graduated 15 week course   

  


Publication(s): Senior Thesis "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation", 15th May, 1986      

  


Mulder had never seen a less noteworthy file.  Unless it was excluded, there was no mention of sanctions, commendations, case history, or other useful information that might otherwise clue him in to why he was being given this file.  He looked up at Section Chief Blevins and then took a glance at a weathered looking man that had been lurking in the corner during the meeting, impatiently tapping a cigarette against an ashtray on top of a file cabinet.

 

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Mulder asked.

 

“The details of the assignment are classified,” Blevins answered.

 

“That should make things easy then.”

 

“It’s a matter of national security.”

 

“So, you think she’s a sleeper agent or something?  Isn’t that more up the CIA’s alley?”

 

The older man in the corner took a long drag from his cigarette and then aggressively stubbed it out in the ashtray.  Section Chief Blevins looked embarrassed by his behavior, and looked down at his desk while Mulder waited for an answer.

 

“The details of the assignment are classified,” Blevins repeated, eyes obscured by the downward tilt of his head and the glare off his glasses.  “You are to access Agent Scully’s daily reports and analyze their content.”

 

“Analyze it for what?”

 

“The details of the-”

 

“Classified,” Mulder interrupted.  “I got that.  You’re gonna have to give me something more to go on though if you want me to analyze her reports appropriately.  Is she a commie?  A homicidal maniac?  A necrophilac?”

 

The cigarette smoking man slunk out of the corner and came to Blevins’ desk.  He leaned down and whispered something to the section chief and then towered over him for a moment before leaving the office.  Mulder wasn’t sorry to see him go.  The man gave him the creeps.

 

“Anything unusual,” Section Chief Blevins said.  “That’s all I can tell you.  Look for anything unusual or out of the ordinary.  Someone from IT is going to install remote access software onto your computer this afternoon.  My secretary will hand you an envelope on the way out with Agent Scully’s ISP address, her username and password.  You’ll need all three to access her files.  From now on, you’ll report to Assistant Director Walter Skinner.  We don’t want anything from you in writing on this matter.  You’ll meet with AD Skinner every Friday at 11:00 a.m. to verbally report any progress.  Do you have any further questions?”

 

“No, I think everything is crystal clear.”  Mulder could barely contain the sarcasm in his voice.  For reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint, this assignment, and how it was issued to him, made him feel antagonistic.  He didn’t like the lack of information and he didn’t like the thought of spying on a colleague, albeit a colleague he’s never even met.

 

On the way down to his office, Mulder tried to think back to one of Dana Scully’s autopsy reports.  He was pretty sure her name had been on a case he’d worked about six months ago.  He recalled that her autopsy report was one of the most detailed and efficient he’d every read.  She’d been the one to discover a small puncture wound in the heel of the victim’s foot, which connected two active cases together, providing the missing puzzle piece sorely needed to issue a warrant.  He wondered if anyone had ever given her any recognition for her part in the major case investigation.  Their unit had been thrown a party with punch and cake.

 

Until recently, Mulder had an office on the fourth floor, but his wing of the building was undergoing renovations and all the agents were dispersed into temporary offices during construction.  Currently, Mulder had the use of a basement storage closet as his office, which sounded worse than it was.  It was spacious and comprised of two rooms, not one.  He had ample room to set up his desk and his books.  He’d also come across a cabinet of unsolved cases dated back to the 1940s that he’d begun to peruse for fun.  They all seemed to have a common paranormal link to them and he’d started to categorize them into his own system to research and come back to at a later time.  The letter X had been written on the outside of the filing cabinet, so he began to privately refer to them as the x-files.

 

An email from Reggie was waiting for him when Mulder booted up his computer.  The email was brief and simply asked for the return of his current wiretapping assignments for redistribution.  He’d worked with Reggie long enough to know that the curt tone of the email hid deep disappointment.  He’d call his former supervisor next week and invite him out for a beer.

 

There was also a notification from IT that the install for his new software was available and to please download the attached file to get started.  Installation was estimated at a half an hour, so while Mulder waited, he opened the folder on Dana Scully again and memorized her profile.  The title of her thesis intrigued him, so while the remote access program installed in the background, he searched for a way to get his hands on a copy of Einstein’s Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation.  Not having any luck himself with it, he called a guy he’d met at an electronics convention a few years back while he was tailing a terrorist suspect to see if he could locate a copy.  If there was something to be found on the world wide web, Ringo Langly would find it.  As the geeky hippie with scraggly blonde hair was fond of saying, his kung fu was the best.

 

The remote access program was easy to navigate once fully installed.  Mulder used the information in the envelope Blevins’ secretary had given him in all the relevant fields and like magic, he had back door entry into Dana Scully’s computer files.  The folders and subfolders were neatly organized into main folders and subfolders.  He opened up the folder labeled CASEFILES and was met with a slew of subfolders labeled by file number and what he speculated was the last name of the victim.  He opened a.290478 - DOE JOHN randomly to browse the contents.  He was met with even more subfolders, but he continued the rabbit hole by opening up AUTOPSY.

 

There were three other subfolders under AUTOPSY and an audio file.  He opened a .wav file labeled Autopsy Narration a.290478 and adjusted his speaker settings when Dana Scully’s voice filled the room.

 

“This is Special Agent Dana Scully, conducting the autopsy of a John Doe, file a.290478.  The date is September the 14th, 1991.  Time is now 8:34 a.m.  The body was presented to the morgue in Quantico in a black body bag.  At the time of this examination, the body is clothed in a short-sleeved blue t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and one black sandal on the left foot.”

 

From the speakers, Mulder could hear the sounds of movement, of scissors, of instruments clicking and clanging.  He’d viewed several autopsies over the course of his time at the FBI and they’d all made him queasy.  Dana Scully’s voice was calm and strong.  Just by listening to her for a few moments, he’d already made several observations.  Despite being schooled in Maryland, she was most definitely not from Baltimore, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been brought up on the west coast.  She had the accent of one _without_ an accent.  

 

Another observation he made was that she lowered her voice when she was unsure about something.  Throughout most of the autopsy, the audio was crisp and confident.  She was obviously very skilled, but when she reached points of ambiguity, she got harder to hear, down to a near murmur, and there’d be a slight inflection in her tone as though she was questioning her own statement.

 

Mulder grimaced through a skull saw and various other wet, squishy sounds to the end of the file, and though the noises of an autopsy were unpleasant, Dana Scully had a soothing voice that made it bearable.  He actually liked her voice a lot.  It was the kind of voice he could hear narrating a book on tape.

 

After the autopsy ended, Mulder opened the other folders one by one, labeled PHOTOS, X-RAYS, and BLOOD WORK.  He clicked through each file like he was flipping channels on the TV.  Once he made his way through all the subfolders for that case, he went back to the main storage screen again.

 

Experimentally, Mulder opened up the LESSON PLAN folder and read a few of her lesson plans.  He opened the RESEARCH file and almost went cross-eyed from the sheer volume of files inside.  Not just files, but there were folders from A-Z on all types of medical conditions and diseases.  Dana Scully could easily be the most interesting or most boring person on the planet, he decided.

 

Once he backed out of the RESEARCH file, he tried to click on PERSONAL, but it was password protected, which made her a little more interesting and a little less boring.  He was instantly intrigued.

 

Knowing how bad he was at tech stuff, and for fear of accidentally deleting or moving a file he shouldn’t and have Agent Scully catch on to his surveillance of her, he copied the contents of her drive onto his own system and simply labeled it SCULLY.  He then disconnected himself from her computer and began the task of analyzing her reports.  Instead of organizing her files alphabetically or numerically, he organized them by date created and worked backwards from the most recent, but there was still a lot to go through.  In the two years she’d been at Quantico, she’d worked on hundreds of cases.  Even if Mulder tried to get through ten reports a day, it would still take him several weeks to get through, not to mention the fact that she was an active agent.  New files were going to continue to come in.  He’d have to be diligent about checking her system.  He considered himself a good agent, but diligence was not his strong suit.

 

*****

 

Mulder was accustomed to taking work home with him, but that had been when he was living inside the head of the criminally insane, trying to determine their next moves before they made them.  Since he’d started the wiretapping, he’d been less than inclined to bring files home and so, he left his laptop locked up in the office and enjoyed his weekend playing a few pick up games of basketball at his local YMCA.  On Saturday night, he headed to the offices of The Lone Gunmen to follow up with Langly on Dana Scully’s senior thesis.

 

The trio of men who wrote for the magazine The Lone Gunmen were a mismatched crew.  They fought constantly, but were also inseparable.  Mulder had come to think of them as a unit, each possessing certain skills that made them function as one entity.  Langly had the tech, John Byers had a salesman-like quality of selling any idea, and Melvin Frohike could build anything electronically from the ground up.  He spent a lot of Saturday nights at their offices when he wasn’t absorbed in casework.  They entertained him, if one could find heated arguments about string theory entertaining.

 

It was chimichanga night, which meant the boys were in a good mood.  Chimichanga night was a favorite.  Not only that, Langly had beaten a newly released first person shooter game in 14 hours, so he was strutting around like a peacock.  He’d also been successful in locating the thesis Mulder had requested and presented it to him printed and bound.

 

“So, who is she?” Langly asked.

 

“Who’s who?” Mulder cagily replied.

 

“Your physicist.”

 

“It’s classified,” Mulder said, drily.

 

Langly rolled his eyes.  Classified didn’t mean much to any of the gunmen.  They used discretion, but there wasn’t anything they couldn’t get their hands on, classified or not, which Mulder had used to his advantage a time or two.

 

“Boys, let me ask you something,” Mulder said.

 

“More chimichangas?” Frohike asked.

 

“No, thanks, I’d just be eating my own heartburn at this point.  If I needed to monitor someone’s computer activity, how would I do that?”

 

“Depends on what you’re monitoring,” Langly answered, mouth full of chimichanga.

 

“If I need to know when they log on and when they create a file, let’s say.  Or if I needed to get into something that was password protected.”

 

Both Frohike and Langly laughed.  

 

“Thought you might be asking for something hard,” Langly said.  “That would take like, thirty seconds.”

 

“I could do it in twenty,” Frohike interjected.

 

“You could not, you troll.”

 

“Could so, you hippie gamer.”

 

“Time out, boys.  It’s not a contest, I just might need a favor.”

 

Langly glared at Frohike and then pushed his glasses slightly up his nose.  “Does it have anything to do with your physicist?” he asked.

 

“She’s actually a pathologist, and she’s under surveillance.”

 

“How come?” Byers wanted to know.

 

“No idea,” Mulder answered, honestly.  “My assignment is just to snoop around.”

 

“Huh.  What does the government want with a pathologist?”

 

“She’s also FBI.”

 

The trio glanced at each other.  Mulder could see the suspicion in their eyes.  Any time one of his assignments was outside the norm, it raised red flags in their eyes.  He trusted them not to use the information unless given permission, however.

 

“Don’t worry,” Mulder said.  “They’re probably simply looking for a leak or something.”

 

“Nothing is ever simple when it comes to the FBI,” Byers admonished.  “You should know that by now.”

 

“I know.  Now, tell me how to monitor her computer activity.”

 

An hour later, Mulder left the gunmen’s office with a floppy disc, handwritten instructions on its use, which he was required to burn after reading, and a copy of Dana Scully’s senior thesis.  He put the disc and the instructions in his briefcase and tossed the thesis onto the pile of magazines on his coffee table.

 

Sunday evening, while brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed, he remembered the paper and sat down to read.  It was nearly 80 pages of physics he didn’t understand, but one thing was clear, Dana Scully was some kind of genius.  Why did she throw away what probably could’ve been a lucrative career in either physics or medicine to be a pathologist for the FBI?  Already she was becoming something of an enigma to him, and he loved a good enigma.

 

*****

 

Mulder looked forward to going into work on Monday and he hadn’t looked forward to going into work in a long time.  He was ready to dig into the Scully file and find out just what she was doing over in the pathology department at Quantico.  As he sipped his coffee, he booted his computer and then slipped the floppy disc the gunmen gave him into the drive.  He followed the instructions carefully and slowly.  He’d ask Langly to make them as simple as possible, but he had to stop to contemplate a few steps and their meaning.  The bottom line was, first he needed to clone her system onto his computer, and then he needed to install two programs onto Agent Scully’s computer, one to alert him to new activity, and one to track her keystrokes to capture any passwords, and he only had one shot not to fuck things up and not get caught.

 

As he pressed the enter key, he crossed the fingers of his left hand and waited.  A long stream of programming language scrolled down his screen at lightning speed and then disappeared.  Nothing happened after that, but he had a new icon on his desktop that looked like a small blue box.  He clicked on it and suddenly he was looking at what must have been Agent Scully’s desktop as it appeared to her.  He’d just successfully cloned her system on his computer.  

 

The next step in the process required him to enter into her system through the back door he’d obtained her files from and install first one macro and then another onto her operating system.  If he were a religious man, he would’ve prayed the moment he transferred the first macro into the folder Langly specified.  He held his breath throughout the process and then went back to her desktop.  Nothing looked amiss to him, so he minimized the screen and opened up the latest autopsy report he’d transferred to his system.

 

Nearly an hour later, Mulder had thoroughly analyzed the report of file n.664978 - JOHNSON PETER, dated last Wednesday, September 8, 1993.  There was absolutely nothing of note or unusual about Mr. Johnson’s death, nor Scully’s - he’d decided to just drop the Agent and think of her as Scully - report.  

 

While he was reading the second file of the day, the minimized window of Scully’s desktop pinged once and started flashing.  Mulder stopped what he was doing and opened up the window.  He watched in real time as Scully opened a new casefile labeled x.141559 - SOAMES RAY and started creating folders and files.  By the time he finished perusing her email with her, he was back in the ‘Scully is boring as hell’ camp.  Everything she received had death written all over it, to be expected of course, in the email of a pathologist, but there was nothing personal or remotely interesting to or from anyone in what he saw.

 

After some time, he gave up the active surveillance and went back to her completed reports.  He waited until after lunch to return to her desktop and it appeared idle to him.  He quickly copied her latest file over to his computer and went through it.  Immediately, he noticed that it was different from the other four he’d just read and included a folder for a prior autopsy report.  The autopsy Scully performed that morning had been exhumed and sent to Quantico over the weekend.

 

Scully’s autopsy report was indecisive and inconclusive, a departure from her prior files.  She all but accused the previous medical examiner of either lying, or alleges that the body was somehow switched prior to burial.  In fact, she alleges the body she autopsied wasn’t even human.  After reading both Scully’s and the prior ME’s drastically deferring reports, Mulder opened the .wav file for the autopsy narration.

 

“Subject is a hundred and fifty-six centimeters in length,” Scully said, after her general introduction.  “Weighing fifty-two pounds in extremis.  Corpse is in advance stages of decay and desiccation.  Distinguishing features include large ocular cavities, oblate cranium...indicates subject is not human.”

 

Mulder paused the file and then moved the time stamp back a few seconds to listen to that last moment again.

 

“-avities, oblate cranium...indicates subject is not human.”

 

There was a change in her tone just before she declared the subject not human.  He expected that she might sound surprised, but in fact she sounded exasperated.  He listened to it a few more times and then allowed the file to play on.  At the end of the autopsy, he heard her snap off her gloves and sigh.  It sounded as though the file ended, but her voice returned for an addendum.

 

“Official laboratory inspection of the body and x-ray analysis confirms homologous but possibly mutated mammalian physiology.  However, does not account for small unidentified object found in subject's nasal cavity.  A grey metallic implant of unknown properties.  I recommend further testing of this implant and have transferred to the forensic lab at Quantico.  My assertion is that this is not the body of Ray Soames.  This body...is decidedly not human.”

 

Mulder sat back in his chair, utterly baffled.  It could not be utter coincidence that had Section Chief Blevins ordering him to surveil Scully on Friday and just happen to perform an autopsy on an exhumed primate on Monday.  What was his real assignment?  Was it to look into the case of this Soames guy, or was it to monitor how Scully handled it?

 

The strange thing was, he had x-files on metallic implants.  Most of them from people reporting alien abductions, which he found puzzling.  He’d been meaning to do a bit of research on abduction phenomenon, but the last time he’d planned to go to the library, his sister derailed his plans at the last minute by begging him to come over and help her move her couch.  It turned out, that was just a ruse to set him up on a blind date with one of her friends, a date which went all sorts of wrong, but suffice to say, he’d never made it to the library.

 

Scully’s desktop window pinged and blinked at him again and he opened it back up.  He watched her return to the Soames file and open the autopsy report.  She scrolled through it and added an asterisk to the section where she recorded the removal of the metal implant.  She then went to the end of the report and added a note.

 

_** Lab at Quantico reports the disappearance of said metal implant.  Evidence was signed for at 12:17 p.m. and as of 4:02 p.m. gone missing._

 

Mulder narrowed his eyes as he watched Scully log off her computer.  Something was fishy about the casefile and about his assignment.  He wasn’t a special investigator for nothing, though.

 

*****

 

By the end of the week, and his first meeting with AD Skinner, Mulder had ordered books of alien abduction from the library, which should arrive soon, and read Scully’s autopsy reports back to the beginning of the year.

 

He was surprised by the temperment of AD Skinner’s secretary, Holly.  He was accustomed to bulldogs guarding the AD’s offices like they were the first line of defense against any intrusion into their superior’s inner sanctum.  Holly, though, was rather meek and extremely polite.

 

“You can have a seat, Sir,” she said to Mulder.  “I’ll let AD Skinner know you’re here.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

Holly spoke quietly on the phone, “Agent Mulder is here to see you, Sir,” and then went quietly about her duties.  Mulder only had to wait a few minutes before the AD opened his door.  He was tall, nearly bald, and broad-chested, like a football player or a wrestler.  His presence filled the doorframe.

 

“Agent Mulder,” he stated.

 

Mulder stood and slipped into AD Skinner’s office.  The first thing he noticed was the smell of cigarette smoke and the still smoldering remains of a single Morley cigarette in an ashtray on the conference table.  The door closed behind him and AD Skinner nodded at the chairs in front of his desk.  Mulder sat down and smoothed his tie down his chest.

 

“Agent Mulder,” AD Skinner said.  “You’ve been assigned to analyze the autopsy reports of Special Agent Dana Scully.”

 

“Yes, Sir.”

 

“Do you have anything to report thus far?”

 

Mulder had already decided prior to his meeting with AD Skinner that he was going to proceed with discretion on this matter.  Given that the nature of the assignment was still unclear to him, he was not going to share his extracurricular research with anyone, let alone the AD, at this juncture.  He was going to keep things succinct and to the point.

 

“I’m to report on anything unusual I find in Agent Scully’s autopsies,” Mulder said.

 

“That’s correct.”

 

“On Monday morning, Agent Scully autopsied the body of an exhumed individual that she concluded was that of some sort of primate.  She alleged that the body had been switched prior to burial or that the ME who had done the original autopsy six months ago was negligent.”

 

Skinner listened stone-faced.  Mulder couldn’t get a read on what he might be thinking.  The AD was the very definition of stoicism.  It unnerved him a bit.

 

“She also reported a metallic implant in the nasal cavity of the body which she ordered testing on.”

 

“What were the findings?”

 

“The implant disappeared after it was signed for at the Quantico lab.”

 

“Is that all?”

 

“Since I’m still not sure what exactly I’m supposed to be looking for here as part of this surveillance, I can tell you that Agent Scully teaches classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  On Wednesdays, she conducts teaching autopsies and on Mondays and Fridays, the autopsies assigned to her by the department on active cases.”

 

“I’m aware of Agent Scully’s schedule.”

 

“Okay, well the only other noteworthy item I can mention at this time is that in January, she refused to conduct an autopsy and ordered the transfer of a body to the CDC for further evaluation when she believed the victim may have had smallpox.”

 

“Why is that noteworthy?”

 

“Because smallpox was officially declared eradicated in 1980.  It would be the first known outbreak since 1949.”

 

“Was it smallpox?”

 

“The CDC took the body and stonewalled Agent Scully when she made inquiries.”

 

Mulder could hear the ticking of the clock on AD Skinner’s wall in the silence that followed.  His new boss hadn’t made a single note or seemed to take much interest in Mulder’s evaluation.  There didn’t seem to be much point to the meeting.

 

“Is that all, Agent Mulder?”

 

“I suppose it is, Sir.”

 

“I’ll see you next week, then.”

 

Mulder left the meeting with a frown.  He was annoyed by the lack of real information about this assignment, but at the same time, he was enjoying it.  It was a change of pace from wiretapping and definitely a change of pace from VCU.  Plus, he found himself growing almost attached to Scully somehow.  He looked forward to listening to her voice and reading her reports.  He wished they’d met when she did the autopsy for VCU.

 

When Mulder logged back into his computer after returning to his office, he saw that Scully was using her system as well.  He checked the log and saw she’d opened a new casefile, so he minimized the window to read her old reports for the rest of the day.

 

At 5 p.m. he shut down his system, but brought his laptop home with him this time, just to check in on the log every so often for any new files.  He picked up a pizza on the way home and kicked back with a beer to watch ESPN.  Baseball season was dwindling down and everyone’s predictions for the World Series were all the talk.

 

Mulder fell asleep on the couch watching Mystery Science Theater 3000.  When the woke up, the channel had gone off the air and the TV was just snow.  It was almost 2 a.m.  He turned the TV off and swept his hand over his face.  Under the blue glow of his fish tank, he opened up his laptop and signed in.

 

To Mulder’s surprise, Scully was on her computer as well, though she was idle.  He ran the log and saw that she’d opened up her personal folder just about fifteen minutes ago and started a new file titled 1993.09.19.  He checked the keystroke capture program and found the folder password he’d been waiting for: Starbuck64.  He made a face.  Dunkin’ Donuts had far better coffee than Starbucks.

 

Mulder entered the password when he opened the folder and a whole slew of files came up, arranged with the same date code, starting with 1990.11.15.  He started with the first one and it was immediately obvious it was an electronic journal.

 

_I barely see Jack anymore at all.  I thought things would be different once I was out of the academy, but they haven’t changed.  I’d like to have blamed it on the secrecy that was necessary at the beginning of our relationship, but this has nothing to do with me being a student or him being an instructor any longer._

 

“Score one for the interesting side,” Mulder said to himself.

 

_The problem with Jack is that he lacks the ability to multi-task.  He becomes so consumed by a case that he can’t see past the end of his nose.  It’s almost like I don’t even exist anymore to him.  I’m not sure if the trip we have planned to his parents cabin in Pine Barrens is a good idea anymore.  Thanksgiving with my family is already going to be stressful enough, and I said that to him when he planned the weekend, but it’s the only weekend he has off and maybe the isolation might allow us to talk to each other, really talk to each other about where we’re going with this._

 

_Melissa has been no help to me in this.  She’s never liked Jack and told me he had negative energy and a brown aura.  She thinks I should cut ties immediately, and that I should never have gotten myself involved with him.  She can’t understand why I love him and keeps telling me that I deserve someone who gives a shit about my opinions.  Funny, because she herself has always told me I’m opinionated to a fault._

 

_I can’t explain to Melissa the things she doesn’t see.  She hasn’t seen how brilliant Jack is when he’s analyzing a case, and she hasn’t seen the way he holds a room when he lectures.  It’s that deep passion and drive that drew me to him and when it’s directed at me, it makes me feel so powerful.  It’s just that he turns on a dime, and while I can be his sole focus for a day, I’m invisible for a month.  If he could just divide his attention even a little, I think we can get through this._

 

Mulder frowned.  He agreed with whoever Melissa was, he didn’t like this Jack guy.  He sounded like an asshole.  He knew a few Jacks that did lectures at the academy, but one was married, one was gay, and the other had been around since J. Edgar Hoover built the place.  He closed the file and went to the next entry, 1990.11.21.

 

_Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I’ve never looked forward to it less.  Melissa took off again because Ahab started going off about how irresponsible she is and how being a healer isn’t a real career and basically accused her of being a prostitute.  I don’t know exactly what he said, but this was what Melissa told me tonight when she called to tell me she wasn’t going to be there and she was sorry to stick me with Bill on my own._

 

_It’s always been like this, though.  Ever since Melissa hit puberty, everything about her seemed to irritate our dad.  They’ve fought about everything since she was 13.  That’s also when she started running away.  First it was a few weeks, and then later a few months.  She never told us where she went when she came back.  I figured Mom or Dad had sent her to stay with Aunt Olive._

 

_Anyway, at least she says goodbye now.  Most of the time.  She still has a tendency to disappear without telling anywhere where she’s gone, but not as frequently as she used to.  She said she wished she could be more like me and ignore the condescension and judgment.  It’s not that I ignore it, it’s that I know he really doesn’t mean to be hurtful._

 

_I’ll deal with it as best I can.  Ahab will find a way to subtly rail about Melissa and mom will smile and ignore it all.  Bill will side with dad, of course.  And I’ll just sit in the corner and try to explain to Aunt Olive why I’m not married yet.  I wish Charlie would come home, but I understand why he won’t._

 

The psychologist in Mulder was having a field day.  Scully was unfolding for him like a flower.  In two journal entries he’d pretty much gotten everything he might need to know to develop a pretty solid profile if he needed to.  It also sounded like Scully’s dad and his dad should get together and trade secrets about being hardasses.  His sister went a full six months without speaking to their dad once in high school.  Melissa and Samantha would probably have a lot in common.

 

Though Mulder was interested in reading more of Scully’s entries, he needed to go back to bed.  He was supposed to meet his sister for brunch in the morning and then he had plans to watch the game with Reggie.  He shut his computer down and put it back in his briefcase.

 

*****

 

Monday morning, Mulder got a call from the library that two of the books he’d ordered had arrived.  He put off continuing with Scully’s reports to go pick them up and then he got wrapped up in research for most of the day.  He managed to find a few more x-files on implants and went up to the archives to research the case of a former agent named Duane Barry, who’d left the bureau in the ‘80s after he’d failed numerous psych evals for claiming he’d been regularly abducted by aliens.

 

On a whim, he also put in an order for the local papers in Bellefleur, Oregon for the last week.  It’s where the exhumed body that Scully had autopsied came from and he wanted to know more about the place or what the papers were reporting about the exhumation.

 

Towards the end of the day, when he checked the logs on Scully’s activity, he found another new casefile.  He transferred everything new over to his own computer and then shut down for the day.

 

He continued with the autopsy reports for the rest of the week, but found nothing interesting.  Her latest cases seemed pretty mundane.  Both Monday and Wednesday were gunshot victims, one to the head and one to the gut.  On Friday, blunt force trauma to the back of the head.  He reported that there was nothing of interest to AD Skinner, and went back to his office.

 

Out of curiosity, and because he had very little patience, Mulder located the autopsy report for the file Scully had worked on for VCU and then scanned her journal files for an entry around the same date.  He found one two days after her report, dated 1993.03.22.

 

_I had lunch with Ellen over the weekend.  We went to Trent’s t-ball game and then to a cafe that just opened up in their neighborhood.  She hasn’t heard from Melissa either.  At this point, we can only speculate she’s in California.  Bill thinks she’s in San Francisco with some guy.  I don’t know.  I’d expected her to at least call by now._

 

_I’m worried about her.  I’ve considered using my credentials to run a trace on her credit cards, but I know she’d never speak to me again if she found out I’d treated her like a missing person.  We all had to come to terms with the fact that Charlie separated himself from the family, but I couldn’t take it if Melissa did the same.  There’s a lot we don’t see eye to eye on, but she’s my sister and I need her._

 

_On another note, I performed an autopsy as a VCU request this week and the lead investigator was listed as Agent Fox Mulder.  I can’t believe I crossed paths with Spooky Mulder himself, not that we met or anything, but his name was on the file.  We studied his monograph on serial killers and the occult at the academy.  Not only did it help catch the serial killer Monty Propps, it also put away the sociopath John Burnett.  Plus, the Burnett case was his first out of the gate at the FBI.  The way people talk about him, he’s some kind of mad genius.  One of our instructors called him the golden boy of the FBI, but everyone else calls him Spooky, as in it’s spooky how on-the-money he is in his profiles._

 

_I shouldn’t judge, though.  I’ve never met him.  He could be perfectly normal.  It’s all conjecture anyway.  I think people are just afraid of how good he is, and sometimes people need to diminish things they don’t understand._

 

_I hope my work was valuable for their case in the long run.  It was just a way to add to evidence they already had anyway, but I still hope it was valuable._

 

Mulder was a little surprised and a little embarrassed to find himself in her journal entry.  He’d always hated that nickname, but no one had ever called him Spooky to his face.  It hurt a little, for some reason, that Scully had thought about him in that capacity.  For some reason, he felt that if they were to ever meet, her opinion would be valuable to him.  

 

He tried to put the melancholy that suddenly fell over him aside and shut down the computer for the weekend.  He left his laptop in the office and took the abduction research and x-files with him instead.

 

*****

 

It wasn’t until his fourth week on the Scully file that another unusual situation cropped up.  On Monday, Scully performed an autopsy for a case where the victim’s liver had been extracted post mortem.  It was the third body in a matter of weeks to be find with a missing liver and the lead investigator, an Agent Colton, was at a loss.  Scully had noted that the liver appeared to be extracted by bare hands, and not with instruments.

 

Mulder was stunned.  He had found x-files of the exact type of murder spree that occurred in 1903, 1933, and 1963.  If the pattern held, there would be two more victims with the same MO and another thirty years before he’d be at it again.  But, was it possible that the same guy could be killing people over a span of 90 years?

 

In Scully’s research folder, he found a set of prints that had been taken from the crime scene that also stumped the investigative team.  The prints were unusually long and thin, like the fingers had been stretched somehow.  The file he had included the same, odd fingerprints, but the identity of the liver-thief had never been discovered.

 

On a whim, he researched the detectives that had worked the cases in 1933 and 1963.  To his surprise, Frank Briggs, the detective who investigated the deaths in 1933, was still alive.  Mulder found a phone number for him, but stopped short of calling himself.  He faced a dilemma.  He wanted to help catch this guy, but he couldn’t take the assignment out from under Colton without explaining how it came his way.  He supposed he could ask AD Skinner if he could work the case, but he had a feeling the answer would be no.

 

After some pondering, Mulder scanned the contents of the x-file the liver theft and then logged into an encrypted email account that the gunmen had set up for him some time ago.  

 

\----------------------

 

To: [ d_scully@fbi.gov ](mailto:d_scully@fbi.gov)

From: george.hale[ @mymail.com ](mailto:noname@email.com)

Re: Liver theft

Attachment(s): x.129202.rar

 

This might help.

 

Tell Colton the UNSUB is likely to return to the scene of the crime.  

 

Frank Briggs is alive.  (202) 555-0904.

 

\- A Friend

\-----------------------

 

He stopped himself at the last minute and didn’t send the email.  For all he knew, he wasn’t the only one monitoring Scully’s activity.  He was only supposed to analyze her reports.  Someone else could’ve been given the task of monitoring her email.  Instead, he copied the file to a disk and printed the memo from the email.  He clipped the disc to the memo and dropped it into a manila envelope.  

 

Part of him worried about whether or not Scully would have the envelope tested for fingerprints, but it was a less riskier chance to take than contacting her via email.  He took the envelope up to the mailroom and found an interdepartmental mail envelope to slip it into.  He wrote D. Scully as the receiver and Forensic Pathology, Quantico as the department.  It occurred to him that he could send the disc straight to Agent Colton, but he didn’t know the guy.  Not that he really knew Scully either, but she seemed diligent enough to check the file.  He stamped it as confidential before he dropped it in the mail bin and went back to his office.

 

He tried to concentrate on Scully’s older reports, but the case nagged at him for the rest of the day.  Several times, he got up from his desk with the intent on heading up to Skinner’s office to ask permission to look into the file, but he stopped himself.  He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize his assignment and he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize his free use of the x-files.  It was a frustrating situation to be in, but he would have to trust that his colleagues, this Agent Colton, could handle the job.

 

*****

 

At 11:22 p.m. on Tuesday night, Scully created a new journal entry.  Mulder found it on Wednesday morning and read it first thing.

 

_I received something strange in the interdepartmental mail this morning.  I’m still mulling it over and I can’t sleep.  Who would anonymously send me a 30 year old file, and why me and not Tom?  After reviewing it all, I definitely noticed the similarities between the cases and I gave Tom the number for the detective, as well as a copy of the file.  He was just as baffled as I was and doesn’t think it’ll amount to much, but he’s going to give Briggs a call anyway.  It’s likely we have a copycat on our hands and maybe the old detective knows something that could help._

 

_Sometimes I wish I were a field agent.  I come across different cases that make me want to go out and do something more useful than slicing up dead bodies.  I know that what I do provides answers and closure in some instances, but it would be nice to feel more active._

 

_Anyway, regardless of the outcome of the case of the liver extractor, the question remains, who is A Friend?  Why me?  It clearly has to be someone at the FBI, but then why would they not have just taken the case themselves?  Or gone straight to Tom?_

 

_Maybe they know that Tom came to me as a last resort to begin with.  He didn’t come right out and say it, but when we had lunch this weekend, his bitterness was obvious that agents newer than him had gotten promotions he felt he deserved.  He was promising enough when we were in the academy, but I also knew that he barely graduated.  I wasn’t sure then if he could hack it as an agent, and I’m not sure now, but solving this case might help him be taken more seriously._

 

_I’ll do what I can to help him and try not to think too much about where the information comes from, especially if it proves useful.  I can’t help but be a little suspicious though.  Is A Friend paying attention to me, or to Tom?  Should I dig deeper into it?  I really don’t know._

 

Mulder got up and paced the office, hands linked at the back of his head.  Maybe contacting Scully was a mistake.  Maybe he should’ve gone to Skinner to request access to Colton’s case.  Maybe the information he’d found would amount to nothing and it wouldn’t matter.  That Briggs guy had to be in his 90's by now and couldn’t possibly recall anything useful at this point.

 

Or, maybe there was useful information to be had in that x-file and Colton couldn’t hack it, as Scully pointed out in her journal.  With that in mind, Mulder looked Colton’s information up in the directory.  He had an extension on the 9th floor, so he sat in the bullpen.  There were vending machines on the 9th floor, Mulder recalled.  One of them was the only one in the building that sold Funyons.  Mulder hated Funyons, but it would give him an excuse to be on the 9th floor.

 

In an effort to look inconspicuous, Mulder took a file with him and opened it in the elevator, pretending to be engrossed as he slowly strolled through the bullpen.  No one paid much attention to him and he took discrete glances at the nameplates on the desks he passed.  He finally saw Colton’s desk towards the rear and he shuffled even slower as he neared.  Colton was at his desk, on the phone.

 

“...best we would have is trespassing, even if he didn’t have a work order.  I don’t know, Dana, he’s a whackjob, that’s for sure, but he can’t be more than 25.  We ran his fingerprints through the database and came up empty.  Not even a parking ticket.  Whoever sent you that file must’ve been yanking your chain.  That Briggs guy too, I sure hope I don’t end up like him.”

 

The phone call continued, but Mulder could only walk so slow and stay in earshot for so long.  Once he got to the vending machine and circled back, Colton was no longer on the phone and he was scribbling something on an open file.  Mulder caught a glimpse of a mugshot for a man named Eugene Victor Tooms before Colton closed the file again and stood up.  He pushed past Mulder on the way to the elevator and then he was gone.

 

For just a few moments, Mulder considered heading back to Colton’s desk and taking the file, but he didn’t.  Instead, he went back to his office and called the gunmen.  Breaking into the FBI database took less than five minutes for them, and in no time, he had Colton’s casefile on his screen.

 

Mulder stared at the mugshot of Eugene Victor Tooms and then pulled out his x-file to look at a black & white photo clipped to the back.  Tooms was the spitting image of the man in the photograph, taken in 1933.  It shouldn’t have been possible, but he looked to be identical.  Could it be his grandson, Mulder wondered.

 

He read Colton’s notes on the arrest of Tooms, found in an air vent in the same office building where the third victim’s body had been found.  He had a workman’s uniform on, but wouldn’t respond to questioning or reveal his identity, so they had to arrest him.  Mulder took a look at the crime scene photos.  The fingerprints they’d found were on the air vents.

 

“It’s gotta be him,” Mulder murmured.  “But, how?”

 

Side by side on his computer screen, Mulder looked at the fingerprints of the UNSUB and of Tooms.  They were completely different, but the UNSUB’s fingerprints were unlike any he’d ever seen.  It really appeared as though someone had elongated their own fingers somehow to thin them out.

 

Almost on a lark, Mulder took the image for Tooms’ fingerprints and flattened them out a little, stretching them lengthwise so they were twice as long.  When he compared the stretched image to the UNSUB, he started to see similarities in the whorls and curves.  He ran a program command to estimate the match between the new image and the UNSUB and it returned 100%.

 

“Well shit,” Mulder said.  “Now what?”

 

What should he do?  Go to Skinner?  Go to Colton?  Tail this Tooms guy himself?  No, if Scully believed him once without more than a file, surely she’d help again now that there was tangible evidence.  He couldn’t wait for interdepartmental mail this time though, he’d have to take the risk of emailing her.  

 

\----------------------

 

To: [ d_scully@fbi.gov ](mailto:d_scully@fbi.gov)

From: george.hale[ @mymail.com ](mailto:noname@email.com)

Re: Fingerprint analysis

Attachment(s): unsub.jpeg EVT.jpeg

! URGENT

 

Scully -

 

Colton had the right guy.  Make him believe.

 

\- AF

\-----------------------

 

Mulder pulled up Scully’s live desktop and waited.  She logged on a half an hour later and he watched her read his email and view the attachments, and still he waited.  She didn’t respond to his email, she didn’t open a new file, she didn't start a new journal entry.  Her computer went idle and then nothing.

 

The laptop came home with Mulder that night, but there was no activity from Scully.

 

*****

 

Thursday morning, Mulder checked the log for Scully’s computer and found she’d entered a new casefile and autopsy report at 5 a.m.  It was less detailed than her usual reports, almost hurried.  She had notes to herself in certain sections to refer to her audio transcription.  It was also labeled as a draft, not as a completed report.

 

There was no further activity from Scully for the rest of the day.  Mulder wasn’t entirely surprised as Thursdays were her lecture days and were generally light, but according to the log, she didn’t even sign in to check her email, which worried him.

 

On Friday, as Mulder made his way up to Skinner’s office, the halls seemed to be buzzing.  Small groups of agents cluttered the halls chatting in low, but excited voices.  Mulder’s old partner from a few years back, Agent Lamana, was amongst them and he stopped him.

 

“Jerry,” Mulder said, with a nod.  “Been awhile.”

 

“Mulder, good to see you.”  Jerry stuck out his hand for a friendly handshake.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“You didn’t hear?  One of our boys got attacked last night.”

 

“What?”

 

“Yeah, some guy named Colton.  Got attacked by a suspect in a serial murder investigation.  A pathologist at Quantico was there and actually shot the guy.  Both of them are in the hospital.”

 

“Colton and...the pathologist?”

 

“No, Colton and the suspect.  Word is that the guy was trying to rip out his kidneys or some crazy shit like that.”

 

Mulder didn’t respond.  His pulse had quickened to the point that his heart was slamming painfully against his chest at the thought that Scully had gotten hurt.  It would’ve been his fault.

 

“Hey man,” Jerry said.  “I heard you quit VCU.  Went to wiretapping?  What the hell happened?”

 

“Just needed a break, Jerry.  I need to go, I’ve got a meeting with AD Skinner.”

 

“Sure, sure.  Hey, we should catch up.  Grab a beer soon.”

 

“Sounds good.”

 

Mulder pulled at his necktie as he walked into the anteroom of Skinner’s office.  Holly greeted him with a fleeting smile and announced him to Skinner.  He couldn’t sit down to wait though, he was too agitated.  He paced the small room and rubbed a spot on his chin that felt like it’d been missed while shaving.

 

“Agent Mulder,” Holly said, quietly.  “Agent Skinner apologizes, but he has to cancel your meeting today.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“We’ll see you next Friday.”

 

Mulder put his head down and avoided the pockets of gossiping agents on his way down to the basement.  There was still no activity from Scully for the rest of the day and he packed up his laptop to bring home for the weekend again.

 

*****

 

Sunday morning, Mulder had an email from Scully that came in at 5:47 a.m.  

 

\----------------------

 

To: george.hale[ @mymail.com ](mailto:noname@email.com)

From: [ d_scully@fbi.gov ](mailto:d_scully@fbi.gov)

Re: Fingerprint analysis

 

Who are you?

 

\-----------------------

 

Before answering, Mulder checked her activity log.  At 5 a.m. she started a new journal entry.

 

_The only time I’ve ever fired my weapon has been at the shooting range, but three nights ago I shot at an actual person, with the intention of hurting him.  I did too.  The bullet went cleanly through the shoulder and stopped an attack on Tom.  I have to go in for a psych evaluation on Monday and my weapon has been confiscated for ballistics.  I spent most of Friday making my statement for the FBI and DC Metro._

_The shooting almost seems secondary to the fact that I may not have been there at all had the mystery informant not provided those fingerprints.  Or maybe Tom wouldn’t have even been attacked in the first place._

 

_I don’t know what to make of this, I really don’t.  In my statement regarding the shooting, I omitted the part about the source of the evidence against Tooms.  I didn’t do it purposefully, but I still felt as though I’d lied under oath.  It just wasn’t questioned, though I hesitate to say how I would’ve answered if it had come up._

 

_I want to know who A Friend is.  I ran a trace on the email address he sent the fingerprints from and it must be encrypted.  George Hale is obviously an alias, though I ran a search on that name as well.  Aside from the astronomer, there 17 other George Hale’s in the registry, but most of them are deceased._

 

_I feel like I need to know.  Not necessarily who, though that would be welcome too.  I need to know why.  Why me?  Why now?  Why?_

 

\----------------------

 

To: [ d_scully@fbi.gov ](mailto:d_scully@fbi.gov)

From: george.hale[ @mymail.com ](mailto:noname@email.com)

Re: (no subject)

 

I never wanted you to get hurt.

 

We can’t contact each other through these channels again.

 

\- AF

\-----------------------

 

After sending the email, Mulder deactivated the account and shut down his computer.  He put it back in his briefcase and then took a shower.  He needed to get ready for his weekly brunch with his sister.

 

*****

 

For the next few weeks, Mulder worked diligently on the autopsy report analysis, reporting to Skinner about the body of the man with the missing limb that had human teeth marks, the two men whose throats appeared to have been crushed from the inside, the murder-suicide victims from the research team in Alaska with an unidentified parasite in their necks, and a suburban father with exsanguination marks in his neck.

 

He tried to stay away from Scully’s journal entries, but he actually couldn’t.  The more he read from her, the more he liked her.  The more he wished he’d met her.  She was smart, but he already knew that, determined, but he already knew that too.  She was also funny and kind and just a little rebellious.  One thing that he’d noted earlier on, is that her entries seemed restrained, like there were things she wanted hidden, even from herself.  He had to read between the lines a lot, but she was a woman who was worth the effort.

 

1991.02.24

 

_It’s a little strange dating someone who has the same birthday as you.  I used to think it was special, but it has a way of actually not being special at all.  Jack and I went to dinner last night and later went to that dive in Statford with the slanting pool table that we used to go to after classes.  Back when it was a place that was close enough to get to easily and far enough that we wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught._

 

 _I suppose we were both looking for a bit of nostalgia.  Or, at least I was.  Jack has just started working a new case, so it’s all he can talk about.  We didn’t do a lot of talking._  

 

\------------------

 

1991.04.19

 

_I spoke to Charlie today for the first time in God knows how long.  It sounds as though he’s doing well.  He’s working in a gallery and they’re going to let him use part of the space to exhibit his photos._

 

_This whole time, I thought it was Ahab’s and Bill’s constant criticism of his decision to go to art school that drove him away, but it’s actually Mom that’s the reason.  I mean I knew she was upset about the atheism thing and his initial decision to part from the church, but Melissa essentially did the same thing and Mom didn’t bat an eyelash.  But, as Charlie explained, even New Age spiritualism is still spiritualism._

 

_It does make sense though.  Charlie never much cared what Ahab thought, but he was close to Mom.  The baby.  Her baby.  I suppose she sees rejection of the church as rejection of her.  I find it difficult to comprehend how she could turn her back on him, but apparently she has._

 

\------------------

 

1991.04.30

 

_Things have ended with Jack and it’s surprising how upsetting it’s not.  I told him I didn’t think we should see each other anymore and he said it was just as well since he didn’t really have time for a relationship anyway.  I think we’ve parted as friends, though I can’t say I have any strong desire to call him up for a chat.  And I don’t think he’ll write either._

 

_In hindsight, I was obviously never going to matter as much to Jack as his work did.  He’s so passionate, the same as Daniel, but all his passion goes into work and there’s nothing left over.  I thought that maybe I could inspire him to focus a little bit of that on me, not too much, I didn’t need another Daniel, but just enough._

 

_Melissa said it was about time.  I can always count on her not to sugarcoat anything for me._

 

\------------------

 

1991.09.19

 

_Bill got married today.  Tara’s a very sweet woman and my parents love her, especially my mom.  She’s a kindergarten teacher, but Bill’s already told us as soon as they start having kids, she’ll be a stay at home mother.  This surprises no one, as Bill has always been stuck in that particular era where a woman’s place is in the kitchen._

 

_He asked me tonight when I was going to settle down and stop dilly dallying at the FBI.  He even offered to set me up with a few of his Navy buddies.  That’s the last thing in the world I need, to marry anyone who is remotely like my brother, or even friends with him.  I love my brother, I do, but he can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that it’s not 1950 anymore._

 

\------------------

 

1991.12.25

 

_Another Christmas for the books.  Melissa came, which was nice.  It gave me someone to roll my eyes with most of the night.  You’d think Bill invented marriage, you really would.  I think even Mom was over it after awhile, but she’s too excited about the prospect of grandchildren to say anything.  Every day is babywatch for her._

 

_Tara confided in me that she thinks she might be having trouble conceiving.  I told her not to worry about anything yet, it’s only been three months, for heaven’s sake, but she had assumed she’d be pregnant by the time they got back from their honeymoon.  She’s one of eight children and both of her married sisters were pregnant within the first two months of their marriages.  She seemed desperate somehow for my medical opinion.  I told her to relax and stop putting so much pressure on herself.  I advised that she give it a year and if she hasn’t conceived, to go ahead and ask her gynecologist to run some tests._

 

_I’m going to need to talk to my mother.  It certainly doesn’t help that every time she speaks to Tara, she asks her if she’s pregnant yet.  That can’t help.  Besides, the problem could lie with Bill.  I actually hope it does, if it turns out there’s a problem.  Maybe it would humble him a little._

 

\------------------

 

1992.06.08

 

_Last week Ellen set me up with a single dad of one of Trent’s friends.  We met when he came to pick up his son at Trent’s birthday party.  Rob seemed like a nice guy, definitely charming enough, but couldn’t seem to find anything else to talk about apart from the most interesting audits he’s ever worked on, which, I have to say, were not interesting in the slightest, or what he likes to do with his son on the weekends._

 

_I started to talk about work a little, just to tell him something about my day, but he stopped me and said we didn’t have to talk about it.  I thought at first maybe it was because I was choosing my words carefully and possibly it seemed like I didn’t want to talk about it, but when I said no, that was okay, it was fine, he stopped me again and told me that Ellen told him I was a pathologist, and whatever I had to say, he didn’t think it was appropriate dinner conversation._

 

_Seriously?_

 

_Thank you for the shrimp scampi, Rob, but no I don’t think we should take the boys to the beach next weekend._

 

\------------------

 

1992.08.10

 

_Today was a difficult day.  It wasn’t the first time I’d had to autopsy a child, but the circumstances were the most unpleasant.  They called this case the Boy Doe in the Well for obvious reasons.  What was done to this child was unspeakable._

 

_I had to remind myself several times today that this is why I joined the FBI, to make a difference.  If I had a different set of skills, perhaps I could’ve made a difference before this child had to die.  But, the least I could do now is speak for him since he can’t.  And to think we have to start by identifying him.  His tiny little prints don’t even come up in the missing child registry._

 

_It’s horrifying.  That’s all I can say.  It’s horrifying._

 

\------------------

 

After Mulder had read that entry, about the child’s autopsy, he’d gone straight to that report and fought back tears as he’d read it.  Fragments of it haunted him and he couldn’t imagine how Scully had coped.

 

 _The body is that of a caucasian male approximately three to four years of age, measuring 36 inches in height exactly and weighing 29 pounds_.

 

_Identifying features include keloid scarring on the surface of the back, three burn marks on the upper left arm, possibly from a cigarette, four burn marks on the upper right arm, possibly from a cigarette, and a hypertrophic scar on the left ankle._

 

_Residue scraped from the wrists of both hands may indicate the subject was bound with tape._

 

_X-rays show a closed fracture of right ulna resulting in slight deformation.  Conclusion can be made that injury is more than six months old._

 

When he was finished reading the report, Mulder listened to the tape and he had to stop it several times in order to get through it.  Her voice was different during this autopsy.  He’d listened to enough of her to know.  She was just as calm as she always was, but her voice was softer, like a mother reading a bedtime story to a sleepy child.  Like if she spoke soothingly enough, that poor, tortured toddler on the table could rest easier.

 

A few times, Mulder found himself wiping tears from his eyes.  He thanked his lucky stars he’d never worked a kid case before.  He’d seen what it did to the people that had.  Serial killings were bad, but in his opinion, child killers were the worst there was.  

 

He’d looked the Boy Doe in the Well case up in the database after he was finished with Scully’s findings, just to see if it he’d ever been identified or if it had been solved.  It hadn’t.  It made him want to punch a wall.  It made him wish he could hug Scully, just once.

 

******

 

The odd thing about reviewing Scully’s files, wasn’t the content of the unusual cases themselves, it was the fact that he was starting to be able to connect them to x-files he’d been archiving.  For every odd autopsy she worked on, he could find a file similar enough that he could categorize it alongside the unsolved.  He considered suggesting to Skinner that they open a department just for them since it didn’t seem that anyone else was interested.  It seemed perfect.  Scully could do the autopsies and he could do the profiles.  Then they’d both go out and find the motherfuckers who did the deed.

 

Tuesday, the 28th of December, started fairly mundanely for Mulder.  Scully had been on vacation the previous week and he had nothing new to review.  He was close to finishing her older reports, and he’d gone through all her journal entries, some of his favorites more than once.  At times, it made him feel like a voyeur, like he was no better than some of the criminals he’d profiled, assignment or not, because the fact was, he enjoyed it too much and hardly ever thought of it as an assignment.

 

It was still fairly early in the morning when he got a call from Holly, requesting he come up for a meeting with Skinner immediately.  He’d never been called up to Skinner’s office unexpectedly before.  Aside from the one time his meeting was canceled, they’d only met every Friday since his transfer.

 

“Agent Mulder, I’ll make this brief,” Skinner said, taking a seat across from Mulder before handing him a file.  “Are you familiar with this man?”

 

Mulder opened the file and nodded once.  “Luther Lee Boggs,” he said.  “Killed five family members over Thanksgiving dinner and then sat down to watch the fourth quarter of the Detroit-Green Bay game.  My profile sent him to the gas chamber in 1989.”

 

“And are you aware he received a stay of execution while he was strapped to the chair the first time?”

 

“I’d heard that.”

 

“Did you know that as a result, Boggs claims that this experience activated in him the ability to channel spirits and demons?”

 

Mulder had to laugh at that and closed the file.  Skinner didn’t bat an eyelash, his face the continuous mask of stoicism it always was.

 

“Oh, come on,” Mulder said.  “What is he trying to make a plea of insanity now?”

 

“The file in your hand is actually on the abduction of two teens from Jackson University.  Boggs is set to be executed in one weeks time and he claims to have information regarding their whereabouts.  He claims to have received this information via psychic transmission.”

 

“So call Geraldo, I’m sure he’ll be interested than I am.”

 

“Boggs got a hold of your profile on him and he thinks you’re the only one that could possibly understand him.  He says he’ll only give this information to you.  The Raleigh branch is requesting you meet with him.”

 

“Is this a joke?”

 

“You leave this afternoon.  Holly has the plane tickets at her desk.  That’s all.”

 

Mulder stood, the closed file in his hand.  It occurred to him that if this file was about psychic phenomenon, it would fit right into the x-files, and perhaps provide an opportunity he was looking for.

 

“Sir, do I have your permission to work this case with the Raleigh branch?” he asked.

 

“Just get the information, Agent Mulder.”

 

“But, do I have your permission, if it doesn’t take me away from my duties on the Scully file, to work this case.”

 

Skinner hesitated.  For a moment he suddenly seemed less authoritative than usual, like he wasn’t the one Mulder needed to ask for permission.  A thick silence hung in the air.

 

“You have my permission,” Skinner finally said, his jaw tight.  “Go get your tickets from Holly.”

 

Mulder picked up his tickets and hurried back to the basement.  The flight was at 2 p.m. which gave him enough time to pull as many x-files as he could regarding psychic abilities or near death experiences before he had to leave.

 

When he sat down at his desk, he noticed Scully was on her computer as well and he checked her screen.  She had a journal entry up, but her cursor was blinking as though she were stalled.  Before he made it through the first sentence, she started typing again so that he ended up reading her words in real time.

 

_Ahab had a heart attack on Sunday night.  We’d just had dinner that night.  It was the first time they’d been to the apartment since my birthday earlier this year.  I wanted to make it special as possible, but of course my father had to point out the fact that my Christmas tree was still up.  Just another infraction to add to the mix.  It should’ve come down the day after Christmas, as befits the Scully way._

 

_Mom called me in the middle of the night to tell me Ahab was gone.  The weird thing is, I had been dreaming about him when she called.  At least, I think I was dreaming, but it felt like I was awake and he was sitting in the chair across from me where I’d fallen asleep on the couch.  He was trying to tell me something, but he wasn’t making a sound.  The phone rang, and I guess that’s when I really woke up and of course, the chair was empty._

 

_Bill told me not to even think about doing an autopsy on our father and I almost told him to fuck off.  What does he think of me?  I hope it was grief talking._

 

_This is not what I envisioned my life would be like.  It doesn’t mean I’m not happy with my choices, but this was never part of “our” plan.  “Our” plan was that I would go to med school and complete my residency close to home.  On everything else, we argued.  Ahab wanted me to go into pediatrics or be an OBGYN, which he felt were more ladylike careers in medicine.  I wanted to go into cardiology.  He wanted me to work in a private practice, I wanted a position at a teaching hospital._

 

_With my career underway, I was supposed to then meet a nice Catholic boy and start my own family.  This is what I’d grown up with as what was expected from me.  I know that choosing the FBI over medicine disappointed both of my parents, but Ahab was especially slighted that I hadn’t followed orders.  I will never know if he was proud of what I’ve achieved or not._

 

_I wonder though, what he thought of all of us.  Bill may have followed his footsteps into the Navy, but he will never make Captain.  Melissa comes and goes as she pleases, in and out of everyone’s life, and Charlie has completed severed ties with all but me and Melissa.  Neither Charlie or Melissa are even coming to the funeral._

 

_Bill flew in yesterday, but Tara has been on fertility medication and has been sick, so she stayed at home.  My cousin Patrick will be there with his wife and their boys, as well as my cousin Maureen, but that’ll be all.  My mother was adamant that only family attend, and that’s pretty much all there is of the Scully clan at this point._

 

_The ashes will be scattered at noon today at Jonas Green Park in Annapolis.  I have an autopsy scheduled for 3 today and Agent Lattimer offered to take it for me, but I need to work.  I need something to put my back up against._

 

Moments later, Scully closed her journal entry and Mulder checked the time.  He did some quick calculating in his head and determined that if he hustled, and left within the next half an hour, he could be in Annapolis at noon and make his flight from BWI if he was gone by 1.

 

He didn’t want to get too close to be seen, but just once, Mulder wanted to see her.  There were very few cars parked in the lot when he pulled up.  It was still 20 to noon, but he got out and assessed the area.  If he sat on one of the benches on the sloping grassy hills above the beach, he was sure he wouldn’t be noticed.  

 

To look a little less g-man and more business casual, Mulder left his trench coat in the car and took off his suit jacket.  He had a windbreaker in his overnight bag which he put on since it was blustery, and he brought a magazine over to the bench that gave him the most direct view of the beach.  The sky was grey and he hoped the rain held back until the services were over.

 

To his right was a short dock and a small boat, rocking in the water.  To his left was a bridge spanning over the water to the other side of the peninsula.  Sand became rocks beyond the bridge, and then murky open water.

 

Not too long after Mulder sat down on the bench, three cars pulled up, which he only glanced at in his periphery.  One was a minivan, the other a black Cadillac, and the third was sure to be a government issue maroon Taurus.  He cringed a little realizing his requisitioned grey Taurus was just a few spots away from where the maroon one parked, but it wasn’t like only government employees drove a Taurus.

 

Mulder recognized Scully immediately.  She stood out with her flame of hair amid the black trench coats.  She walked behind a tall, striding man Mulder assumed to be Bill.  A man leading two young children and two women were next in the procession and then following them all was a dark-haired woman clutching an urn.

 

To keep up appearances, Mulder turned a page of his magazine, but his focus was on the family, particularly of Scully.  As they all clustered together, Bill took the urn from his mother and walked it over the men on the boat.  They had a brief conversation and then Bill trudged back to the group while the boat spluttered to life.

 

One of the boys put a boombox down on the sand in front of where the family stood and crouched over it.  Scully seemed to be trying to speak to her mother, but kept getting dismissed.  Small drops of rain started falling and Mulder grimaced in annoyance.

 

“Damn,” he muttered, closing the magazine and holding it above his head as he started to slowly get up to leave.

 

Someone on the beach opened an umbrella, and then Scully opened one and all he saw was her back and the wide brim of the umbrella blocked his view.

 

The boy with the boombox pressed a button and then ran back to his father as the boat stopped in the distance.  The opening bars of Beyond the Sea began to play and Mulder caught a glimpse of the ashes being spread in the water just before he made it to his car.

 

He doesn’t really know what compelled him to need to see Scully, he just knew that he had to take the opportunity.  She was just as he imagined her to be, but still different.  He sat in his car while the rain began to fall a little heavier and waited just a few more minutes.  The sadness of the little funeral surrounded him like an oppressive blanket.  He had the urge to send her another message, just to tell her how sorry he was for her loss, but of course he couldn’t do that.

 

With a sigh, Mulder started the car and headed to the airport.  He landed in Raleigh and was picked up by one of the agents working the teens’ abduction case who briefed him on what they knew so far.  Most of it he knew from reading the file on the flight over, but his attention had been spent more on the x-files he’d brought.  When he wasn’t looking at the files, his mind was on Scully.  They made a brief stop to check Mulder into a motel for the night and drop his briefcase and overnight bag off before they headed to the prison.

 

While they waited for the guards to bring Boggs down for his interview, Mulder requested an evidence bag.  He wanted to test something he’d read about in one of the files.

 

Boggs shuffled into the interview room, cuffed at the hands and feet.  He pushed his chair over to the corner with one foot and slumped down, staring at Mulder.  Mulder has never had the displeasure of being face to face with one of the stars of his profiles.  He tried not to let his discomfort show.

 

“I was told you asked for me,” Mulder said, foregoing introductions.  “You have something you want to tell me.”

 

There was no answer from Boggs.  Not at first.  The prisoner just stared, wide-eyed, but blankly.  He finally rolled his eyes up to Mulder, but kept his mouth shut.

 

“Well, it was nice talking with you, Boggs,” Mulder said, rising from his seat.  “I’ll get going now.”

 

“The soul of Luther Boggs drowns in hell's sea of fire,” Boggs said.  “We have him now.”

 

“We?  You mean the souls of your victims?”  
  
Boggs shrugged nonchalantly.  “The dead.  The living.  All souls are connected.”   
  
“And you're...the conduit?”   
  
Boggs started to breathe roughly, sucking in air through his nose and opening his eyes even wider, if it’s possible.  His voice changed into a lilt, almost feminine in tone and quality.  “Fox,” he said.  “Please understand that from here, we can return to the past.  We can see the present.  We can know the future.”   
  
“From here?  Where exactly are you?”   
  
“Mr. Boggs must be made redemptive for his transgressions.”   
  
“That's exactly what the state of North Carolina intends to do next week.”   
  
“No,” Boggs barked, affecting a New York accent.  “Uh-uh.  Let's deal.  Boggs' life for the kids, you know what I'm saying?”   
  
It was the kind of statement Mulder had been waiting for.  He pulled the evidence bag he’d requested out of his pocket and slid it across the table towards Boggs.  “First you've got to prove you're telling the truth,” he said.   
  
Boggs eyed the bag, but didn’t get up to touch it.  Mulder stood and opened up the bag, taking out a swatch of blue fabric.  He came around the table and waved the cloth at Boggs between his index and middle finger.

 

“Don't get me wrong, Boggs, I want to believe.  But, you need to show me.”  
  
Boggs took the fabric and held it to his face.  He started gasping and squirming, his body straining up from the chair as he sniffed and rubbed the small piece of fabric.  “Oh,” he moaned.  “Oh, God.  No.  No!  Must stop...stop.  Stop, stop, stop, stop!  Pain!  Terrible.  Terrible pain.”   
  
Mulder paced behind the table, glancing at the two-way mirror as he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away from Boggs.  He didn’t watch the show Boggs was putting on, listening to Boggs gasps and moans while remaining in profile.   
  
Boggs groaned.  “The boy.  The boy...uh, Jim.  He's tied with twine.  Uh...ah...packing twine.  He...uh...uh...he whips them... whips them with a, a coat hanger, a wire coat hanger.  Oh Jesus.  Dark place.  Cold.  Cellar.  Warehouse.  Condemned warehouse.  An angel of stone.  Waterfall. Water falling.  Not a waterfall.  Not water.  They're there.  Oh, God.  Gotta go.  Gotta go.  I...I...I got to go.”   
  
When Boggs ran out of steam and slumped back in his chair, breathing heavily and dazed, Mulder came back to him and knelt close, slipping the piece of cloth out of his limp hand.  “I tore this off my New York Knicks t-shirt,” he said, shaking his head.  “It has nothing to do with the crime.”

 

Boggs rolled his eyes towards Mulder and stared directly at him for the first time.  Mulder stared back, unthreatened.  Boggs was the first one to avert his eyes and then Mulder got up, tossing the cloth on the table as he headed to the door.

 

“You help my Starbuck,” Boggs said, quietly.

 

“What was that?” Mulder asked, turning back around.

 

Boggs face contorted in anguish and then he gritted his teeth and pulled his brows together into a sinister sneer.  Mulder turned to leave again and as he walked through the door, Boggs began singing softly.

 

“Somewhere, beyond the sea, somewhere, waiting for me…”

 

*****

 

Mulder felt agitated and unnerved after his interview with Boggs.  He was skeptical about the prisoner’s claims going in, and after seeing his performance up close, even more so.  The lie about the cloth sealed the deal, but even so, Mulder was still rattled by how intensely Boggs oozed insanity.

 

The Raleigh agents and Mulder watched the tape of the interview together, looking for things they may have missed the first time around.  

 

“I think I know a place that has the landmarks he’s talkin’ about,” Agent Sparks, a portly man with a thick mustache drawled.  “Downtown off 2nd, there’s the Hotel Niagara, crossways from a big empty warehouse.”

 

“We’ll check it out,” his partner said.  “Agent Mulder, you wanna ride along?”

 

“No thanks, I’m going to review the interview again, try to get a handle on what Boggs’ angle might be on this.”

 

The agents left the prison, leaving Mulder in a small holding room to go over the tape.  Every time Mulder reached the point where he walked to the door, he paused on Boggs face just before the “tell Starbucks I’m proud of her,” comment.  In that moment, he almost looked like a different person, softer somehow.

 

“Starbuck,” Mulder murmured.  He’d been typing that into his computer nearly every day for the past few months as part of Scully’s password.  But, what would Boggs know about that?  And the way he said it, actually what he said, made it seem as though ‘Starbuck’ was a woman.

 

It dawned on Mulder suddenly and he straightened in his seat.  “It’s Moby DIck,” he whispered.  “Ahab, the father, the Navy captain.  Starbuck, his first mate.  Scully _is_ Starbuck.”

 

The revelation almost had him calling the guard to bring Boggs back down, not for an interview, but for an interrogation.  What the hell was he playing at and how did Scully fit into it?  It seemed to lead credence to the notion that someone else might be watching her, but would that person have access to Boggs?  Or maybe it wasn’t Scully that was being watched, maybe it was _him_.

 

One of the guards who was getting off duty gave Mulder a ride to his motel.  He was anxious to check his computer, to call the gunmen and have them check to see if he’d been hacked in some way, and to get his hands on the prisoner visitor and phone log the warden promised to email him before he left.

 

As soon as Mulder opened his briefcase, he hesitated. There was a manila envelope on top that he definitely did not put there.  He thought back on his steps and when he’d last opened the case - not since packing things up in the office that morning.  He’d put the files he wanted to review in his side pocket for easy access.  Then, his briefcase was unattended only twice: in the car while he watched the funeral services for Scully’s father and in this motel.

 

Wishing he had a pair of latex gloves, Mulder gingerly lifted the envelope from the briefcase by the corner edges.  He grabbed a few tissues from the box on the nightstand and opened the top of the envelope to peer inside.  All he could see were newspaper cuttings.  He turned the envelope over and dumped the contents out onto the bed.  A 5x7 black and white photo fell out amongst the scraps of newspaper.

 

The cuttings were all headlines, and there must’ve been at least 50 of them.

 

UFO HIGHWAY DISCOVERED ACROSS AMERICA

 

MYSTERY CRAFT TAILED BY USAF PLANE

 

STRANGE CRAFT SPOTTED HOVERING OVER NEIGHBORHOOD

 

RAAF CAPTURES FLYING SAUCER ON RANCH IN ROSWELL

 

PROJECT BLUE BOOK EXPOSED

 

GOVERNMENT DENIES KNOWLEDGE OF UFO ACTIVITY

 

FORMER FBI AGENT CLAIMS ALIEN ABDUCTION

 

CLOSE ENCOUNTER FOR EX-POLICEMAN

 

‘I WAS ABDUCTED’ THE INSIDE STORY OF ONE WOMAN’S EXPERIENCES ABOARD A UFO

 

THE SHOCKING TRUTH BEHIND ALIEN IMPLANTS

 

ARE WE ALONE? TOP ASTRONOMERS SAY NO!

 

FOOTAGE FROM ALIEN AUTOPSY UNEARTHED

 

All the headlines were related to alien abduction and UFOs in one way or another.  Mulder laid them all out separate, 46 in total and scrutinized the text.  None had the flashy and cartoon-like font of a tabloid.  For the most part, they looked to come from legitimate papers.  When he turned them over, some, but not all, included the sources cited in pencil.  One in particular stood out, from the Bellefleur Gazette, dated February 28, 1993: WHY ARE THEY HERE AND WHAT DO THEY WANT WITH OUR KIDS?

 

Finally, Mulder picked up the photo, half-expecting it to be a picture of an alien.  At first glance it appeared to be a scenic shot of a desert, but there were two men in the background.  Using the magnifying glass in his briefcase, Mulder took a closer look at it.  Judging by the attire of the men, the photo was taken in the late 60s or early 70s. They also appeared to be arguing.

 

Mulder squinted hard.  The man on the left was short and stocky, with fair skin, a round moon-face and was prematurely bald.  The man on the right was tall, with dark hair and sideburns.  He looked familiar for some reason, like Mulder knew his face.  He stared at it until It finally dawned on him where he’d seen that man before.  Age the man by a good 20 years and put a cigarette in his hand and he knew exactly where he’d seen him before.

 

“What the hell is this?” Mulder said to himself.

 

He inspected the envelope again, but there was nothing written on either side.  He opened it and looked inside.  There appeared to be something stuck to the inside.  He reached in, hand covered with a tissue, and extracted it.  It was an orange Post-It with the words “Work Together” written in pencil.

 

Mulder was still puzzling over the envelope when he got a call from Agent Stark, the one with the mustache.

 

“Searched the warehouse and found a necklace,” he told Mulder.  “The parents have ID’d it as belonging to our missing girl.”

 

“I’m almost a hundred percent certain that Boggs is working with someone on the outside and they planted that evidence,” Mulder told him.  “The warden i going to be emailing me his visitor and phone logs. I might need someone in your office to run some traces after I review them.  Now, we have to be very careful about planning our next move because he's five steps ahead.”

 

“What do you suggest?”

 

“I don’t know yet.”  Mulder looked down at the scattered newspaper headings over his bed that had distracted him from what he was in Raleigh to do.  “I’ll get back to you as soon as can.”

 

*****

 

The next morning, there was a package waiting for Mulder at the Raleigh bureau offices.  Agent Sparks greeted him with a lukewarm cup of coffee and offered him a doughnut.

 

“No, thanks,” Mulder said, slicing into the package.

 

“That it?” Agent Sparks asked.

 

“Looks like it.”

 

Mulder opened the newspaper up and read the headline: KIDNAPPED COLLEGE STUDENTS FOUND SAFE.  Below the bold headline in smaller print: POLICE SEEK SUSPECT.

 

“You think it’ll work?” Sparks asked, sipping his coffee.

 

Mulder studied the bogus article for a few moments.  He had to give credit to whoever had been assigned to write the copy, it was vague on details, more celebratory than factual.  The Carolinian had agreed to print the fake headline with included article at the behest of the Raleigh bureau, but the request had come from Mulder.  Only six people were aware of the fraudulent paper.

 

“I found nothing in the logs,” Mulder said.  “Boggs gets his weekly phone privileges today.  I want him to see this headline and think it’s all over.  Hopefully, he’ll make a call to his accomplice to find out what happened.”

 

“And if he don’t?”

 

“Well then, I guess I go back in there and do another interview.  If he’s taking requests, maybe I’ll ask him to summon up the soul of Jimi Hendrix for a little rendition of “All Along the Watchtower.” We’ll see if being dead for 20 years takes away the edge.”

 

Sparks snorted into his coffee, sputtering a little on his tie, which he wiped away.  

 

The other agent Mulder had been working with yesterday, Agent Kirkland, was already at the prison by the time Mulder and Sparks arrived. He’d been working with the guards to temporarily reposition certain cameras to capture Boggs movements throughout the day.  They also put a tap on the prisoner phone to record any conversations.

 

The agents watched from their holding room as the fake newspaper was delivered to Boggs with his breakfast.  For the next hour, Boggs paced his cell, mumbling to himself.  When he was finally let out for his phone call, they all tensed, readying themselves for what might come.

 

“Start the tape,” Mulder said.

 

Sparks started the recording even before Boggs dialed.  All of a sudden, there was a ringing in their holding room and everyone looked at each other in confusion, except for Mulder, who was staring into the monitor as Boggs looked up into the camera as though looking directly at him.

  
“Would someone turn off that phone?” Mulder ordered, growing and more annoyed.  “Turn it off.”

 

Agent Sparks picked up Mulder’s discarded suit jacket from a chair in the corner.  “Agent Mulder, I believe it’s you that’s ringin’”  


Irritated, Mulder took his phone and pulled up the antenna before he flipped it open.  “Mulder,” he grumbled.

 

“How come you don't believe me?” Boggs asked from the other end of the phone. Mulder looked back at the monitor where Boggs still appeared to be looking back.  
  
“I believe that you have the kids,” Mulder answered.  “Now where are they?”

  
Boggs dropped the phone with a moan and grabbed his head like he was in pain.  The receiver swung freely above the floor and Mulder listened as Boggs continued to moan and curse.

 

“Nobody gets out unless I do,” he groaned.

 

The guard that brought Boggs into the phone room arrived to escort him back to his cell.

 

*****

 

Sparks came into the holding room where Mulder was making notes on his original profile of Boggs.  He looked like he had bad news to share, and in a way, he did.

 

“My AD thinks the tip about the warehouse was enough to tell Boggs we’ll deal with him,” Sparks said.

 

“What does that mean, exactly?” Mulder asked.

 

“We tell him he’ll get his stay of execution if he provides the whereabout of the missing kids.”

 

“He’s getting a stay?”

 

“No, Sir.  I said, we’re to tell him he’ll get his stay.  Well, you’re tell him.”

 

“You want me to lie to him.”

 

Sparks shrugged rather unhappily.  Mulder scratched at his chin.  His job had always been in the background, getting into the heads of criminals, while other officers got confessions.  He’d had training in interrogation, of course, but these were not an interrogation and Boggs was not an idiot.  Mulder was sure he’d see through the lie and clam up.  They were running out of time, though.  If they didn’t find those kids soon, their only known link to them would die in the gas chamber.

 

“Fine,” Mulder said.  “Get him down here.”

 

Boggs sat in the corner in much the same way as he had during the first interview.  He seemed listless this time though, resting his head against the wall like he couldn’t keep it up.

 

“You’re getting what you want,” Mulder said.  “Tell us where the kids are and your sentence will be reduced to life without parole.”

 

Boggs rolled his eyes to Mulder and then up to the ceiling.  He sighed heavily and pushed away from the wall a little.  He took one deep breath and then another.

 

“The kidnapper is aroused by the prospect of becoming a killer,” Boggs said.

 

“What’s his name?”

 

“Don’t know.”

 

“Describe him.”

 

“Tall...thin…late 20s maybe…”  Boggs frowned a little.  “Tiny skull in the ear.  His eyes are cold.  Very cold.  Oh my God…”

 

“Keep talking.”

 

“Oh my God he’s got a wire.  No.  No!”  Boggs held his arms up in front of his face and hunched his neck like he was protecting his head.

 

“Where is he, Boggs?”

 

“By the window.  There’s uh...it’s a boathouse.  Lake Jordan.”

 

Mulder turned to glance at the two way mirror and then back at Boggs, who was peeking up at him from under the protective cover of his arms.

 

“Tell them not to go near the white cross,” Boggs whispered.  “Blood will spill.”

 

“Sure.”  Mulder stood to leave.  “You know, Boggs, if you were really psychic-”

 

“-I’d have known you were lying about my deal.”  

 

The two men stared at each other.  “Why’d you summon me down here?” Mulder asked.  “You could’ve given this information to any of those agents at any time.”

 

“I wanted you to believe.”  Boggs relaxed in his chair and lowered his arms.  Both his demeanor and his voice softened.  “Did you get my message?” he asked.

 

“What message?”

 

“You take care of my Starbuck.  And don’t let them hurt her anymore.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Somewhere, beyond the sea…”

 

“We better find those kids alive, Boggs.”

 

Boggs closed his eyes and continued to hum the song as Mulder was buzzed out of the room.  The Raleigh agents had already left to check the boathouse at Lake Jordan.

 

*****

 

The kids were rescued.  Boggs was going to the gas chamber in two days time and there was nothing further for Mulder to do.  The working theory was still that Boggs had an accomplice, a man who one of the teens identified from a book of mugshots.  A manhunt began for the suspect they now had a face and a name to go by and where they got the information from became irrelevant.

 

Mulder had a late afternoon flight back to Baltimore.  He picked up his car from long-term parking, but instead of heading home, or even stopping at the office, he went to the offices of the Lone Gunmen.  He was confused, at first, why they were wearing party hats and had an ice bucket of beers chilling in a cooler on the table, but then he realized it was New Year’s Eve.

 

“What can you tell me about the men in this picture?” Mulder asked, foregoing any polite conversation or usual banter, but getting down to business right away.  He hoped the urgency with which he made the request would light a fire under the gunmen, new year or not.

 

The trio passed the photo around, but none of them had any information to share off the bat.  Langly took it to scan into their system and run some sort of facial recognition software on it.  Mulder poured out the headlines onto their work table and asked them if they could get him the full articles for the ones that were labeled and research the others.

 

“I also...I need you to check my computer to see if I’m being watched.”

 

“Watched by who?” Byers asked.

 

“I don’t know.  But, someone knows something.  Someone knows what I’ve been working on.”

 

“Can you leave it here for a few days?” Frohike asked, inspecting the shell of the laptop.

 

Mulder hesitated.  He didn’t want to leave his computer behind, not because he didn’t trust the gunmen with it, but because he didn’t want to be far from Scully.  He’d already lost nearly two days with her, he didn’t want to deny himself access to her for the weekend as well.

 

“I’ll pick it up on Sunday,” Mulder said.  

 

*****

 

The next two days were excruciating for Mulder.  He felt like an addict going through withdrawal.  On Saturday, he went into the office to take yet another look at the x-files on alien abduction.  He made notes on the recurring patterns, locations, dates, names, anything that seemed even remotely important.

 

Frustrated with what seemed a fruitless mission, and nothing being open since it was the first day of the year, he went to his sister’s place to brood.  At the very least, she’d feed him and let him rant, which she did.

 

“I’d hoped you were past this, Fox,” Samantha said, sliding a grilled cheese sandwich onto a plate in front of him.  “I haven’t seen you like this since you quit the VCU.”

 

“I didn’t quit,” he mumbled around a mouthful of grilled cheese, and then quickly let it fall from his mouth.  “Hot!”

 

“It’s fresh out of the pan, of course it’s hot, you moron.”

 

“You’re such a pain.”

 

Samantha sat down at the table and put her hand on his arm.  “But, seriously, this mystery package, whatever it is or means, you can’t let it work you up like this, Fox.”

 

“I’m not, I’m not.”  He tested the heat of the grilled cheese with his fingers and blew on it.

 

“You are.”

 

“It’s just…”  He dropped the sandwich and sighed.  “It’s like it occurred to me that I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.  Like I’m just playing at being an FBI agent at this point.  I...I what, I spy on people for a living now?  I get spied on in return?  It’s…”

 

“Do you know why I haven’t tried to set you up in months?”

 

Mulder grabbed the back of his neck and winced dramatically.  “Hang on, I think I just got whiplash from how fast you changed the subject.”

 

Samantha shoved him in the shoulder and he leaned out of his chair, pretending she had nearly knocked him out of his seat.

 

“Kidding, kidding,” he said.

 

“You’re such a pain.”

 

“That’s my job.”

 

“I haven’t set you up-“

 

“-and thank you, by the way,” he interrupted.  “You finally got the hint and stopped meddling in my love life.”

 

“What love life?” Samantha snarked.  “Shut up for a second.  I haven’t set you up because I didn’t need to.  You are besotted with that woman you’re assigned to and you’ve been happier than I’ve seen you in forever.”

 

“I am not...besotted, as you put it.  She’s my assignment.”

 

“I know you can’t tell me details, but she’s all you’ve talked about, until today that is, and I don’t even know how you don’t see it.”

 

“I’ve never even met her.”

 

“Clearly, that hasn’t mattered to you.”

 

Mulder frowned at bit into his cooled grilled cheese sandwich. He chewed slowly, avoiding Samantha’s gaze until he finally swallowed.

 

“Wouldn’t that make me kind of..stalkerish.”

 

“Are you hanging outside of her window at night trying to peer through the blinds with binoculars?”

 

He thought back on the secret spying at her father’s funeral and cringed to himself.  “Not exactly,” he mumbled.  “But, I have invaded her privacy.  How would you feel if some stranger came up to you and said hey, I read your diary and now I think I’m in love with you.”

 

Samantha raised her brows a little.

 

“Dammit,” Mulder said.

 

“The circumstances aren’t ideal,” she said.  “I’ll give you that.  Your grilled cheese is getting cold.”

 

“What do I do, Sam?”

 

“I don’t know, Fox.  What can you do?”

 

*****

 

Sunday morning, bright and early, Mulder got a call from Byers, asking him to come to the gunmen’s office right away. Of course he wouldn’t say why over the phone, so Mulder got dressed, stopped for coffee and picked up a box of doughnuts for the boys to show his appreciation.

 

The doughnuts went untouched, a first in Mulder’s experience.  Usually food barely made it through the door before it was devoured.  All three men seemed jittery and excited about something.

 

“Spill,” Mulder said.  “What did you find?”

 

“Have you ever heard of MUFON?” Byers asked.

 

Mulder shook his head.

 

“How about NICAP?” Langly asked.

 

“Let’s just go with no on all fronts and tell me what you found,” Mulder answered.

 

“MUFON is the Mutual UFO Network,” Byers explained.  “They’ve been publishing accounts of alien activity and UFO sightings since the ‘60’s.  We trolled their message boards last night to see if we could find information on the headlines you have.”

 

“Lo and behold,” Frohike interjected, beckoning Mulder to his computer.  “We found a guy by the name of Max Fenig, an archivist of all things UFO.”

 

“Guy’s got articles from village papers in Siberia,” Langly added.  “Not to mention an avid Doom player.  He gave me some cheat codes I ha-“

 

Frohike cut Langly off.  “No one wants to hear about your video games.”

 

“We got all your articles except for six of them,” Byers said.  “But, Fenig also sent us what you’re looking at on Frohike’s screen.”

 

Mulder peered over Frohike’s shoulder at a series of black and white photos, the thumbnails too small to make out without enlarging.

 

“What _am_ I looking at?” He asked.

 

“Fenig has been working for years to identify members of what he calls a consortium of men,” Frohike said.  “All from various government agencies, co-conspirators in the cover up of alien activity.”

 

“Okay,” Mulder said,

 

Frohike opened up the first photo to its maximum size.  The photos were all old, Mulder estimated the earliest to be from the mid-to late 1940’s and the latest sometime in the 70s.  Some of the photos were posed for, most were candid or looked like surveillance photos.  The photo from Mulder’s envelope was amongst them, only it had writing on the bottom.

 

“CGB.S,” Mulder read.  “What does that mean?”

 

“Fenig has never been able to identify the man on the left,” Byers said.  “This is the only photo he appears in.  This other man, he has determined his initials to be C.G.B.S.  He’s been at this for about five years and he only has complete identities for two of the 12 men that are part of this consortium.”

 

“So, someone wants me to follow up on a conspiracy plot?  The Weekly World News seems to already have this covered.”

 

“I don’t think so,” Frohike said.  He closed the photo set and opened up a folder labeled PURITY CONTROL.

 

“We’ve been doing stories on this for awhile now,” Byers said.

 

“Except we never had a name to put on it, just bits of information,” Langly added.  “That dude Fenig just blasted it wide open.”

 

“What is it?” Mulder asked.

 

“Read for yourself,” Frohike said, vacating his seat to let Mulder sit down.

 

Mulder read, with incredulity, a report on a secret government project with the intent to create alien-human hybrids. He learned about storage facilities for alien fetuses and about staged abductions of women to harvest ova and the implantation of these laboratory created babies into unsuspecting surrogates.

 

“This is ludicrous,” Mulder said.  “It sounds like something out of a sci-fi film, not real life.”

 

“It’s some twisted shit, that’s for sure,” Langly said.  He was finally poking at the doughnuts Mulder brought and he had jelly on the corner of his mouth.

 

“I need to know more about this, about these women and what’s being done to them.”

 

“This is all we have,” Byers said, shaking his head a little regretfully.

 

“And this,” Frohike said, handing Mulder an article printed by MUFON two years prior.  It was an interview with an unnamed doctor with the program, clearing his conscience about the things he’d done.

 

“They spend years monitoring these women,” Mulder read.  “Secretly testing their intelligence, their record of childhood diseases, medical history, all for...for the hopes of creating a new race that would withstand an alien invasion?”

 

“In thirty years, they haven’t succeeded,” Byers said.

 

It came to Mulder suddenly, that if the government was involved, if that cigarette smoking man in the picture was involved, he could unwittingly be a part of it.  What was he analyzing Scully for?  He, a profiler, reporting on her intellect, her competence, her capabilities?  Was she next?

 

“I have to go,” Mulder said.  “I have to go right now.”

 

“Mulder,” Byers said, stopping him as he jumped up from his seat.  “Your computer.”

 

“Did you find anything?”

 

Frohike shook his head.  “Bug free,” he said.

 

*****

 

Mulder ran over a variety of options in his head of how to reach Scully.  He was convinced she was in danger and getting to her as soon as possible was what he needed to do.  Thinking back on his conversation with Samantha, he didn’t think showing up at her door was a very good idea, not just because he was a stranger to her, but because it was possible someone could be watching.  That also meant calling was out of the question.

 

How then?  How could he meet with her in secret without scaring her?  Without getting caught?  If hs computer wasn’t being monitored, maybe he had an option.  Maybe he could reach her through her computer.

 

It wasn’t even noon yet when Mulder got home.  He opened his laptop right away and checked to see if Scully was on hers as well.  She hadn’t signed in since Saturday morning.  He didn’t stop to read her newest report or the diary entry that was logged as well.  Instead, he created his own document and kept watch on the activity of her monitor.

 

_Scully -_

 

_I know you don’t know me, and I’m sorry to contact you like this, however I believe it’s imperative we meet.  It can be in a public place of your choosing, but we shouldn’t be seen together.  You can come armed.  Actually, I would prefer it if you would come armed._

 

_There’s something going on that I think involves the both of us.  I can’t say more because I don’t know who’s watching._

 

_All I need you to do is add your answer to this document.  Tell me when and where, and keep in mind this needs to happen as soon as possible.  When it disappears off your desktop, you’ll know I’ve gotten the message._

 

_\- A Friend_

 

After writing the file, he saved it as URGENT.txt and transferred it to Scully’s desktop.  He opened it up for her to see as soon as she logged on and then waited.  He didn’t move from his desk, he didn’t turn on the TV or the radio, he just waited.  A little over an hour passed before the activity monitor beeped indicating Scully had signed in.

 

Mulder held his breath, watching the open document on her desktop for a response.  It took a few minutes, but finally the cursor moved across the screen and blinked a few lines below his message.

 

_Lincoln Memorial 3pm_

 

“Yes,” Mulder whispered to himself.  He immediately closed the file and then deleted it from her computer.

 

*****

 

At 2:45, Mulder, in his running gear, jogged his way through the National Mall towards the Lincoln Memorial.  There wasn’t a lot of people out and about, either because it was an overcast day or because they were all still nursing their New Year’s hangovers.  A tour group was just heading down the steps of the memorial when Mulder arrived and he jogged in place, watching the tufts of his own heated breath visibly burst out in the cold air.

 

He wasn’t the least bit surprised that Scully was already there, a lone figure standing before the memorial, the size of the monument dwarfing her already small frame.  He slowed his pace up the last few stairs and her head turned towards him as he came closer.

 

“There’s an urban legend that says that Lincoln’s hands are shaped into the letters A and L in sign language,” Mulder said, standing just a few feet away from her and looking up at the monument.  “To represent his initials.”

 

“Interesting,” Scully answered.

 

He didn’t like the way the interior of the monument echoed, but the sound of her voice gave him a thrill he didn’t know he could experience, especially since he’d been listening to her for so long it wasn’t a surprise to him.  But, it was live and in person and right beside him, which made a difference.

 

“I have a lot to tell you,” Mulder said, quietly.  “And to show you.”

 

“Tell me who you are first.”

 

Mulder anticipated the request and he had taped a little Post-It to his ID that said A Friend before he’d shoved it in the zippered pocket at his breast.  He passed her his ID wallet unopened and kept one eye one the entrance to the monument, the other on her.  She peeled the little Post-It off his ID, thumb brushing the gold plated badge on the other side.  She showed no signs of a reaction as she closed the little wallet and handed it back to him.

 

“The profiler?” she asked.

 

“I’ve been taking a little break from profiling, actually.”

 

“I knew you had to be FBI.  Why couldn’t you have just dropped by my office?  Why this?  This...cloak and dagger game?”

 

“It’s not a game.  Look, what I need to tell you is that I have reason to believe you might be in danger?”

 

“Why?”  Scully turned to face him, ending the charade that they were just two strangers standing and viewing the monument.

 

Mulder put a hand on the small of her back and led her towards the row of shadowed columns to the left, out of the direct path of the entrance.  Scully walked with him willingly, but her body was tense.  He purposefully moved past her and put his back to the wall to give her the open space behind them so she wouldn’t feel trapped or threatened.

 

“I left VCU last year,” Mulder explained in a low voice, leaning close to her to close the distance between them.  She listened in profile, taking the occasional sideways glance at him.  “I was working in wiretapping for awhile, but since March, I’ve had a surveillance assignment that no one would tell me the exact nature of.  At the same time, my office was temporarily moved to a basement storage closet where I found cabinets of unsolved files dating back to J. Edgar Hoover.”

 

“What does any of this have to do with me, Agent Mulder?”

 

“I first...I need to ask you if you’ve ever seen this man.”  Mulder pulled the black and white photo of the two men talking out of his pocket and showed it to Scully.

 

Scully snatched it out of Mulder’s hand and frowned at it, her brows coming together.  She shook her head lightly and then flicked the photo back to him, almost angrily.  “Of course I’ve seen him,” she hissed.  “It’s my father.”

 

“What?” Mulder said, voice raised to what felt like a shout inside the echo chamber of the monument.  He hunched closer to Scully and pointed to the cigarette smoking man in the photo.  CGB.S.  Was the S for Scully?  “This man is your father?”

 

“No,” she said, pointing to the bald man on the left.  “ _This_ is my father.”

 

Mulder rubbed his forehead in confusion.  Scully looked agitated, like she could either shoot him or just storm out on him at any second.

 

“Okay,” Mulder said.  “Okay, this is...look, you’re not going to like what I’m going to tell you, but I need you to hear me out, okay?  Just, please, don’t walk away.”

 

“I’m here aren’t I, Agent Mulder?  So, just tell me.”

 

“You’re the assignment I was given in March.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“It means, I was tasked to analyze your autopsy reports, but more than that, I think I was tasked with profiling you.  I’ve been...watching you.  Not, not like through your windows at night kind of way,” he said quickly, touching her elbow in reassurance when the color drained from her face.  “Monitoring your laptop.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I don’t know.  I had theories about why when it started, but now I think...I think I need you to work with me on some things I’ve uncovered.  I think you’re the only one that can make sense of them.”

 

“I don’t even know how to make sense of what you’re telling me,” she hissed at him, clearly frustrated.

 

“I think someone wants us to work together.  I think I was shown certain things and directed to certain things to expose some government secrets.  And, I just know...I know from watching you that I _need_ you with me on this, Scully.”

 

Scully tipped her face away from Mulder just slightly and he pulled back.  He put his hands up apologetically and took a few steps back.  She stayed where she was, her eyes darting around the floor in front of her.

 

“What would you need me for?” she finally asked.  “I’m not a field agent, I’m not a profiler, I’m nothing but a pathologist.”

 

“You’re a scientist.  You’re a...you’re a physicist, and a medical doctor.  You’re...someone who could validate the things I can’t make sense of.  Here, look…”  He pulled out a folded piece of paper that he’d printed before he left and gave it to her.

 

Scully unfolded it with her eyes on his chest and then she took a few passing glances at the molecular diagram blown up on the page.  “What is it?” she asked.

 

“I thought you could tell me.”

 

“It’s...organic.  Some sort of synthetic protein?”

 

“It’s an unidentified substance found in the tissue surrounding unidentified marks on a dead teenager in Oregon.”

 

“Okay…”

 

“The same marks and the same substance were found on a woman in Sturgis, South Dakota as well as Shamrock, Texas, and that’s just this past year.  There are dozens more like this in the x-files.”

 

“The x-files?”

 

“The unsolved files in the basement.”

 

“And you have some sort of theory about how these are connected?”

 

“Scully, do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?”

 

“Logically, I would have to say no.”

 

He opened his mouth to tell her more, but she continued with her argument instead.

 

“Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements would exceed a spacecraft's capabilities for one thing, and…”

 

“This girl in Oregon was the fourth from her graduating class to die under mysterious circumstances.”

 

“The girl obviously died of something.  If it was natural causes, it's plausible that there was something missed in the post-mortem.  If she was murdered, it's also plausible there was a sloppy investigation.  I don’t believe there are answers beyond the realm of science, if that’s what you’re getting at.  The answers _are there_ , you just have to know where to look.”

 

“That’s why I’m looking at you,” Mulder whispered, making direct eye contact with her for the first time.  He was instantly pulled in by the utter blueness of her eyes and he couldn’t look away.

 

“You said this had something to do with me,” Scully whispered.  “About my safety and you have a picture of my father.  Why?”

 

“You autopsied one of the Oregon teenagers in March.  Ray Soames.”

 

“The body I autopsied was not human.”

 

“And you found a metal implant in the nasal cavity that disappeared after it was entered into evidence.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It’s all in the x-files, Scully.  The...the marks, the implants.  Evidence of systematic alien abduction spanning back decades.  And there’s a group of men from all levels of the government, covering it up and staging their own abductions as a means to protect themselves against invasion.”

 

Scully looked up at him like he was crazy, but it didn’t surprise him because he felt crazy.  To try to put the pieces of the puzzle he had so far together and to verbalize it made him feel like he was the crazy one.  But, the last person in the world he wanted to look at him like he was just “Spooky Mulder,” was Scully.

 

“Look,” he said.  “I had trouble believing it myself.  I’ve _been_ having trouble believing what’s been right in front of me.  But, I found out this morning about a project they’ve been working on.  Monitoring women, selecting the strong, the intelligent, the capable, and turning them into lab rats to unwittingly be surrogates of alien-human hybrids.”

 

“Do you hear yourself, Agent Mulder?”

 

“Why did they assign me to you, Scully?   _Why_?  Unless I’ve been unknowingly a part of it.  And if anything happened to you...Scully, if…”

 

“I think you might be insane.”

 

Mulder chuckled a little and pushed his hand back through his hair.  “I wish that I was,” he said, cutting his eyes from her to look up at the profile of Lincoln.  “It would be so much better if i was just making this all up.”

 

“You’re telling me that you think I’m in danger of being abducted by aliens.  What the hell am I supposed to say to that?”

 

“No, I’m telling you I think you’re in danger of being abducted by our government.”

 

“I don’t even know which is more unfathomable!” she barked, and they both winced and ducked further into the shadows of the columns.

 

“There’s one more thing,” Mulder said, pulling a small tape recorder from his pocket.  “Two days ago I was in North Carolina interviewing an inmate on death row who told authorities he was receiving the whereabouts of a couple kidnapped teens via psychic transmission.”

 

“And did you find their spaceship where he said it would be?”

 

“It was just your everyday sadist on that one, not E.T.,” Mulder quipped, relieved that though there was tension all around them, she could offer him a mild joke which he could return.  He figured it would bode well for their future.

 

He pressed play on the recorder and gave it to her.  She held it near her ear, listening to his first interview with Boggs.  It was muffled, but he could tell when she got to the part he needed her to hear when her shoulders tensed and her eyes darted up to his.  He nodded at her to keep listening and a few minutes later, she sucked in a breath and bit her bottom lip.

 

“Before you say anything, I want you to know I’m really sorry about your father,” Mulder said, as Scully handed him back the tape recorder.

 

Scully sniffed once and ran her knuckle across the bridge of her nose as she averted her eyes.  She licked the side of her lip and nodded once.  “You were wrong, Agent Mulder,” she whispered.  When she looked back up at him, her eyes were wet, so wet he felt like he could drown in them.  For the first time during their conversation, she looked afraid.

 

“What is it?” he asked, and without thinking, reached up and cupped her cheek.  “Scully?”

 

“That song was playing at my parents wedding.”

 

“I’m sorry to have upset you.”

 

“What made you think that was a message for me?”

 

“In your...you refer to him as Ahab.  Your password is Starbuck64.”

 

“I’m not the one who’s in danger, Agent Mulder.  It’s my sister.”

 

“Melissa?”

 

“She’s Starbuck.  Well, she was.  I just wanted to be.”

 

Mulder straightened as Scully tipped her head away from his hand and turned away from him.  He stared at her back for a few moments.  A group of Japanese tourists suddenly flooded the inside of the monument, their chatter echoing loudly off the walls and cameras flashing.  He retreated back into the shadows of the column, against the corner wall.  Scully followed just a few short moments later and leaned beside him, lifting her head up so her eyes were on the ceiling.

 

“You wrote once that your sister would disappear for weeks at a time,” he said.  “Back from when she was a teenager, even recently.”

 

Scully slid her eyes over to his and nodded softly.  “Do you think...do you think she’s part of that project?  That my father…”

 

“I don’t know, Scully,” he answered honestly.  “I didn’t know the other man in the photo was your father.”

 

“What about the dark haired one you were really asking me about?”

 

“He was in Blevins office the day I got assigned to monitor you.  He’s been in the AD’s office I give my reports to every week.  He’s never said a word, but I’ve never liked him or trusted him.”

 

“What do we do now?”

 

Mulder rolled his shoulder against the wall to turn towards her.  He wished he was looking down at her like this under different circumstances, after a first date perhaps, because he would feel better about wanting to kiss her.  Instead he just shook his head.

 

“I don’t know,” he answered.  “I’ve been trying to think.”

 

“We can’t go rogue.”

 

God, but he loved that she used the word ‘we.’  It almost made him smile, but he sobered and shook his head again.

 

“I know a Senator,” he said.  “A few years back I helped solve the murder of his daughter.  He told me if I ever needed anything I could call.  If I told him I wanted to open up my own unit and work on the x-files, I think he could make it happen.”

 

Scully nodded.  “We could start by finding my sister?”

 

“That seems like the logical place to start.”

 

“I don’t want to be presumptuous here, but you are asking me to be your partner, aren’t you?”

 

At that, Mulder did smile.  “I am.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I don’t want to seem presumptuous, but are you accepting?”

 

“I...think that I am.  Yes.”

 

“Okay.”

 

They stayed shoulder to shoulder for a few moments and then Mulder pushed away from the wall.

 

“It might take a few days,” he said.  “We shouldn’t have contact before then.  You do what you can to try to find out more about Melissa’s disappearances and I’ll do what I can.”

 

“What if it takes longer?”

 

“I’ll figure out a way to contact you.”

 

Scully nodded.  She pushed herself away from the wall and tucked her hair back over her ears.  With one more glance at Mulder, she started to walk away.

 

“Hey, Scully,” he called, quietly.  “Watch your back, partner.”

 

“You too.”  With that, she slipped into the folds of the tourists and was gone.

 

Mulder waited until long after the group was gone to exit the monument.  He jogged in place at the top of the stairs for a few moment, turning his face up to the sun that was making a brief appearance through the clouds.  He was going to get that unit running.  Scully was going to be his partner.  They were going to uncover the conspiracy or whatever it was together.  He jogged down the steps with a smile on his face and a sense of hope on his shoulders.

 

The End


End file.
